Recently, ultrasound treatment has increased the range of use. With the growth of ultrasound treatment, a specific ultrasound treatment, especially high-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU), is applied to damaging dose in order to effectively cure many types of disease, especially tumor. In comparison with conventional surgical operation and chemotherapy, HIFU treatment may hardly traumatize patients and also realize non-invasive treatment. Therefore, HIFU treatment is increasing in clinical applications. For example, HIFU treatment are being used for liver cancer, bone sarcoma, breast cancer, pancreas cancer, kidney cancer, soft tissue tumor, pelvic tumor, and the like.
Such an ultrasound treatment apparatus employs in general an ultrasound probe using a sphere focusing. Ultrasound emitted from all points of the ultrasound probe proceeds toward the center of a sphere, thus forming focused ultrasound. An emitter of the ultrasound treatment apparatus emits ultrasound from the outside to the inside of a body, and this forms a high-energy focused point by being focused during emission and transmission. Highly intensive and continuous ultrasound energy is applied to a target region of a treatment subject. Excessively high temperature (65˜100° C.), cavitation effect, mechanical effect and acoustic-chemical effect may selectively cause coagulative necrosis of ailing organization and also prevent proliferation, invasion and metastasis of tumors.
This ultrasound treatment apparatus requires more exact, safer, and more effective localization of a focused point during HIFU treatment and also requires more convenient operability for locating the target.